Death in Danzig

Rating:
Summary: "We knew for certain that the city would stand forever."
Review: Danzig, a city with German roots that go back to the fourteenth century, became a Polish port after World War I. One generation later, however, Hitler invaded Poland to reclaim the city Germany had always considered German. The Russian offensive at the end of World War II drove the Germans out of Gdansk, at the same time that Poles living in the eastern territories came flooding back into the city. Stefan Chwin, a much praised Polish novelist from Gdansk, for whom this is the first novel translated into English, focuses on Danzig/Gdansk as it adapts to the comings and goings of its changing citizenry during the tumult of 1945.

Imbuing the city with the aura of a main character in his darkly impressionistic novel, Chwin shows that no matter who is officially in control, the city somehow survives, a permanent monument to the endurance of the communal spirit and the ability to adapt. Meticulous descriptions of the smallest aspects of daily life--home furnishings, buildings, neighborhoods, and life at the port--turn the city into a living, breathing entity, battered by changes of fortune, perhaps, but still functioning and still providing a home to a changing population.

The characters are finely drawn, unique beings with stories of their own, though many of these stories involve personal secrets which are not fully revealed, even to the reader. Hanemann, a former lecturer at the Anatomy School, has been in love with a young woman who drowned, something that Hanemann discovers when he is asked to perform her autopsy. Piotr, a young Polish boy who becomes the narrator, moves with his family into the empty apartment beneath Hanemann when the previous owners return to Germany. They are joined by Hanka, a young Ukrainian woman, sometimes suicidal as a result of unspeakable atrocities she has apparently endured. Later a mute child moves in. Numerous parallels are drawn between characters, especially lovers, and their destinies and the city and its destiny, and suicide is a constant motif.

Breath-taking in its language, its ability to create vibrant portraits of people and places, and its love and faith in the enduring qualities of the city itself, Death in Danzig is a fascinating, though unusual novel, one in which plot is far less important than the daily lives of those who inhabit it. Leisurely in its development, the novel creates an impressionistic time capsule in which the city becomes the only constant. Mary Whipple


Rating:
Summary: The Anatomy of a Distressed City
Review: Stefan Chwin, an acclaimed Polish writer throughout Europe whose work has not previously been translated into English, is a novelist with a microscopic eye. Every scene, every setting is finely detailed with beautifully precise language (translated by Philip Boehm). Death in Danzig begins during the waning days of World War II, as the Russians are approaching the Polish city which will later be known as Gdansk and as Hanneman, a German professor of anatomy, uncovers the day's cadaver to discover the body of his lover. This metaphor, of an illicit lover prepared to be dissected by strangers, serves as an apt metaphor for this besieged city, both during and after the war.

Chwin follows the lives of Hanneman, his new neighbors (and the narrator) who claim the apartment above him after the war, and a mysterious young woman named Hanka who is rumored to have endured unspeakable horrors during the war. For most of the novel, the conflict is slight - more of a general, internal uneasiness than anything sharply defined - with occasional flashes of intensity, such as when Hanneman is questioned by the Communist authorities about a letter he receives. Chwin favors description over scenic development, often diverting the narrative momentum to divulge a catalogue of what is in the room, but readers who delight in turns of phrase will be charmed with the exactitude of the author's imagination. The city of Danzig/Gdansk is as much a character as its human counterparts. The final pages of this otherwise quiet novel are breathtaking, both in danger and in language.

Death in Danzig is a difficult read because of the relatively static plot and the interior, detailed nature of the prose; however, dedicated readers of literary and international fiction will appreciate Chwin's skill in evoking a city and its inhabitants as they struggle to maintain normalcy.